Installing Sabayon

Installation Guide: Step by Step

install guide with grub2 and GPT

visual walkthrough installing Sabayon

Pre-installation Preparation

Make a note of your current hardware

Though not 100% necessary, it's a pretty good idea to know the specs of your computer. This can help you plan now and help with some decisions later during installation. If you currently have ms windows installed you can check some basic details. In ms windows you can check your system a few ways:

Now in searching these places you want to answers to the following questions:

How much hard drive space do I have ?

How much memory do I have ? (physical ram also know as ram)

This is helpful for choosing your swap partition later.

Which CPU do I have ?

This will help you decide if you choose a 64bit or 32bit operating system. You may need to go to the Intel or AMD websites to check your architure. Or you may be able to find it by using your favorite search engine.

Other Pre-install Considerations

Do I want to use 2 operating systems (such as Sabayon and Windows) on 1 computer?

Even if you delete files and over write a hard drive with a new operating system, old and potentially sensitive data can be retrieved using forensics. If you are looking for a truly clean start you may wish to read the following link and wipe your hard drive properly:

You may not know the answer to that question until a jealous lover decides to kill you in your sleep or some government agency arrives at your home to take you and your pc away ;). If you think privacy and security are important to you then read the following link:

KDE, GNOME, Fluxbox, LXDE, Openbox, Xfce, and Enlightenment are window managers for Linux. They have different functions and appearance. All can work well and have certain advantages. At this point it seems KDE and GNOME are more widely used. I think new Linux users migrating from Windows may find KDE and the classic style kickoff menu (start button and programs list) a little more familiar.

Final preparation for installation

Choose a download mirror

These are different servers in various countries and regions where you can download Sabayon. Usually the closest country or region will download faster, but not always.

Choose the correct iso you want

This is more tricky as the list is quite long. Look at the file names carefully. The file name will incude Sabayon_Linux; version number (as of this writing, 5.4); cpu type (amd64 for both intel and amd 64bit cpu's; or x86 for 32bit processors); and desktop type (E17 for enlightenment; G for GNOME; K for KDE; LXDE); and file type (we want .iso).

If you are unsure than use x86 for 32bit. 32bit operating systems will work on 64bit CPU's, but NOT vice-versa.

Note: files that end with .iso.md5 or .iso.pkglist or .iso.torrent are NOT the iso file. The file image you need to burn to disk will end in .iso

Example: Sabayon_Linux_5.4_amd64_K.iso

If there are errors during installation you may want to come back here and downlown the .iso.md5 file that is a partner to your iso file. The .iso.md5 file is a small file to check the integrity of main iso file you downloaded.

Burn the iso file to dvd

It is very important to know that you do NOT simply burn the iso file as a data file to the dvd. There are many drink coasters out there from those that have. The selection on your dvd/cd coping software needs to say “burn as image”. This selection is not usually on the front of the control panel, but more likely buried under a tab somewhere. For more information on burning an iso to disk try the following links:

Booting Sabayon LiveDVD Image from a USB Device

It is easier though to install syslinux, format your flash drive in FAT32 or ext2/ext3 (the latter is required for LiveDVD images) and use unetbootin GUI tool on the iso image.

Change the boot priority in bios

BIOS is the pretty, black screen with white words you see when you first power on or restart your computer. Normally your hard drive is set to boot first. In order to boot your iso DVD you need to change the boot order so that the computer will boot from the cd/dvd player or usb first. To change the boot order you need to enter BIOS. To enter BIOS you need to push either DEL, F1 or ESC at the very beginning of start up/restart, depending on which BIOS and motherboard you have. After you have entered BIOS you will need to use the arrows on the keyboard to move around and find the settings for boot order/boot priority. After you have made changes you will probably need to push F10 to save and exit.

Save and/or Backup anything on the hard drive you want to keep

Begin Installation

No doubt your eye balls are square and head is buzzing from hours and/or days of reading. At this point we should be ready to rock.

Power on/Restart with Sabayon live DVD loaded in your player.

The computer will power up and begin to load the DVD. It will bring you to a loading options screen. There will be 3-5 choices. You have about 45-60 second to choose, unless you press a key to stop the timer. The top option should be the main loading choice. Selecting this will not install, nor will it hurt your hard drive. It will simply load you to a desktop environment. It could take 3-5 minutes to load to desktop. After it loads you can check that the internet works and play with the system a bit. Keep in mind that the look and feel may be a bit slow and clunky because you are merely test driving on the DVD. After installation, look and feel will be much better. When you're done goofing off and decide for a more serious comitment:

Save and/or Backup anything on the hard drive you want to keep

Click the “Install Sabayon” icon located near the top left corner

The first few screens of the installer should be pretty straight forward even for novice computer users.

Select Root password

In Sabayon, as with most GNU/linux systems, root is the equivalent of “admin” in ms windows systems. This password is important and should be different than user password or any other pw. Linux is fundmentally safer in part because the root password is needed to make changes to important files. Viruses can't auto run and go crazy through your system because you would have to physically log in as root and then run the virus yourself, but we're too smart for that, right? Always initially log into Sabayon or any linux as user, never as root.

You need root password to open Rigo (the GUI package manager for Entropy) and to run certain commands in the terminal.

Select user name, full name, and user password

User name is the name you will need at the login screen everytime you start your computer. (no spaces or funny symbols)

User password is the password you need at the login screen everytime you start the computer.

Full name can be whatever you want including the same as user name. It can also have spaces, etc.

Currently mbr style partitioning is the most widely used and and easiest for for nearly all os's to install to, though GUID (gpt) are gaining more acceptance in mac and latter newer versions of ms windows. Mbr partitioning is the recommended and least problem free at the moment for linux and bsd systems. With mbr partitioning, hard drives can have 4 primary partitions, but can have many logical and extended partitions. Logical/extended partitions are like imaginary branches off of one primary partition.Each LVM group or extended partition group will use 1 of your 4 primary partitions.

Regardless of which scheme you choose, you will need atleast one partition. One partition must contain / (root) partition. Other partitions are optional, but /swap is recommended (/home will be inside of root if you dont make an addition partition). Both /home and swap can be installed as logical partitions off of the /(root) primary partition if need be.

The simplest and most efficient way is to install the entire system to / on 1 primary partition. You will get a warning that swap is not installed, but a swap folder can be added after installation if you want it.

If for some reason you wish to install using multiple mount points or partitions i reccomend the following: I tend to pad partions with a little more volume than is required. You can adjust to leaner amounts if you are thin on hd space, but I recommend the following:

/boot 100mb ext4(32mb-100 is fine)

/ (root) 30,000mb ext4(about 30 gb) 18gb-30gb is fine, but /var will be inside /root, so I put more here.

/swap 1028mb – 4096mb swap(1gb-4gb) this should be about the size of your physical memory.

During the installation you will arrive at a page on the install asking "what kind of installation do you want ?". You can make your own decision about this, but i would recommend Create Custom Partition Scheme. In this way you can set the partitons and partition sizes to fit your needs. Upon selecting custom partion setup you will come to a new page. Click on the freespace or partition you want to change or install to, so that it is highlighted. Once the freespace or partition is highlighted you can then click one of the buttons to either Create, edit, or delete that particular freespace/partition.

For disk encryption you need atleast 2 primary partitions. /boot and / (/root). In this way all other directories such as /home and /var will be installed inside of / (/root). /boot must be unencrypted when you encrypt / (root). For extra security a 100mb partition can installed to a usb flash drive and install /boot to it., though not necessary.

In using LVM groups I have found i can not see swap after installation using LVM. As of yet, I'm not certain if swap is working with LVM groups. I do know swap works on its own primary partition. I have reports it also works on an extended partition. If you have a small amount of ram you may wish to take this into consideration.

Dual Booting

Boot Loader Option page

After you have selected your partion and clicked ok, it will begin formatting and writing to disk. Within a few minutes you will arrive at the boot loader option page. You will want to leave the check box enabled for the bootloader. In most cases you will just click "next". If you are dual booting you STILL leave the check box enabled, but you may wish to click the "change" button. Dual booters should read the above link.

People booting only 1 operating system, Sabayon Linux, (and some dual booters) can click next without changing anything.

Finish DVD Installation

After the boot loader menu you will arrive at the final installer screen. Kiss your lover. Hug the kids. Say a small prayer. Cross your fingers and . . .

Click "Reboot" !

Remove the DVD when the BIOS begins.

The Aftermath: Post-installation upgrades and configuration

With a little luck you will have passed the grub bootloader menu and now find yourself at the login screen.

Enter user name and user password

After you load to desktop you will need a few minutes to let the system check for updates(it takes a while on a new install). When its finished a yellow shield icon will appear in the notification area near the clock.

Don't fall out of your chair !

It is not uncommon to have 300-1000 updates needing to be done on a fresh install. Remember Sabayon is a rolling release so we get new stuff a lot. After the initial install, update, and upgrade the number of updates at once will be way smaller. You don't need to update yet. You can take some time to play and look around.

For users new to Linux that choose the KDE desktop environment I recommend a few quick changes before updating.

Convenient settings for new linux users using KDE desktop

For users new to Linux that choose the KDE desktop environment I recommend a few quick changes before updating. Apply changes in the following order.

Close the small desktop inside of the desktop

This can be annoying, causing disappearing/reappearing icons and widgets. Besides the fact it has a seperate picture in the top left corner of the screen. To get rid of it do the following: Right click on open space on the desktop. Click "activities" in the small drop down box. A new task bar will have opened along the bottom of the screen. There are 5 square icons to the left in the task bar. Click the top right corner of 4 of the icons(2-5) so that there is a red x in the corner of each of the 4 icons. Close the task bar.

Add the home folder to desktop

This can make life easier when you are looking for things or need a place for downloading or putting your other things. To do this click the start button. Move the mouse pointer on top of the "computer" icon. Right click on the "home" folder. Click "add to desktop" in the small drop down box. You may need to move the icons manually if they dog pile on eachother. Now you can click and open the home folder(it should have your user name). After you open it you can right click and add new folders for your downloads, photos, etc inside of the home folder.You will find the home folder is the default for office document saves and other downloads.

You can also go to the start button > system > Dolphin (file manager). Right click Dolphin and add to desktop or panel, whichever you prefer.

Change KickOff launcher(start button) to classic style

The Kickoff menu is nice, but terribly slow to use when you want to get things done. The classic menu is awesome, fast, and easy. To change it simply right click the start button and click "switch to classic style menu".

Add a terminal (command line tool) to either desktop or quick launch bar

Yes, Sabayon has a GUI installer (Rigo). But you are still going to want to use the command line on occasion, especially with a fresh install. Also using the command line in Sabayon is quite a treat on the eyes. All the text when using the command line is multi colored, making it very enjoyable to read and look at. It is also makes finding details in all the text so easy compared to black and white text. Click the start button and put the mouse pointer on "system", find "Konsole" in the list. Right click Konsole and "add to desktop" or "add to panel".